Firing

The Times' report of the firing of Loyola coach Jay Hillock was biased. The reporter chose to point out Hillock's winning record in a season loaded with cream puffs, including what could be the easiest conference schedule anywhere. Fans and alumni are unanimous in their support of athletic director Brian Quinn's decision. It is a coach's job to get the most out of his athletes and team. There is not one player on this year's team who came close to approaching his potential. JOE WASHINGTON El Segundo

I keep reading about the troubles Sears is having. Their answer is to lay off thousands of workers, "Sears Plans to Cut 21,000 Jobs; 900 in Southland" (Jan. 4). The stores are poorly laid out. The floor plans make it almost impossible to find what you are looking for. The sales staff often don't seem to know a thing about the product they are selling--if you can find someone to wait on you in the first place! My wife and I were longtime Sears customers--no more. We recently went in to buy children's clothing and gave up. On the next occasion, we went to purchase a mattress.

You take the elevator, because Lou Campanelli got the shaft. Jim Harrick beware. College athletics have gone too far. Campanelli offered the University of California good coaching, a sound program and outstanding recruiting. Yet, look at the reward he received. A brand new five-year contract and a firing after six months. Universities are saying: Win at all costs. We don't want to know how, just win. JACK HOSFORD Northridge

Good documentaries reveal the physical world and its workings. Great or exceptional documentaries show them in ways we've never seen or imagined before. * In "Fires of Kuwait" (IMAX Theater), easily the most spectacular and exciting of all the IMAX documentaries, the filmmakers give us something we really have never seen before, never will again. They show us a cataclysm, vast and hideous, that beggars most nightmares, reduces most other catastrophes to small change.

Police said Friday that they arrested 13 people on suspicion of firing guns into the air at midnight New Year's Eve. Officers also seized 23 guns as part of an ongoing campaign to stop celebratory gunfire.

May 7, 1989 | Jack Valenti, Valenti, president of the Motion Picture Assn. of America, is the author of "The Bitter Taste of Glory (World)," " A Very Human President " (W.W. Norton) and "Speak Up With Confidence" (William Morrow). and

Marcel Proust's housekeeper once declared that after working for Proust all others seemed quite vulgar. It is not unlikely that Bill Buckley feels the same way about William F. Buckley Jr. Buckley is more than "Everyman"; he is "Everywhere." His talents, protean is the only word for them, were never more vividly exhibited than in his own account, in the New Yorker magazine some years ago, of his "work week." The velocity of Buckley in action resembles nothing so much as a cyclone rakishly invading the culture of a neighborhood.

The firing of Stan Morrison disturbed me. The firing of Ted Tollner infuriates me. I never attended USC, but have been a Trojan fan since the days of Howard Jones' Thundering Herds. Now, and to the delight of my children who graduated from UCLA, I am switching allegiance. The so-called Trojan heritage has shattered its credibility. PHIL TORF Beverly Hills

In an indication that equipment failure is no longer considered a prime suspect in the April explosion aboard the battleship Iowa, the Navy has partially lifted its ban on the firing of the unique 16-inch guns aboard the nation's four battleships, sources said Tuesday. The firing moratorium, imposed a day after a blast ripped through a 16-inch gun turret aboard the Iowa April 19, has been modified to permit the use of the guns in wartime, for self-defense and during operations designed to send political signals to foreign nations, according to Navy officials.